“Is it ever?”
“No, but it’s especially a bad time right before Christmas. And when his dog just died.”
Fair enough. I pull a bag of sour gummy worms out of my backpack and offer it to her. She takes a few with a small smile. “Can I ask you a question?” I ask.
She shrugs again. An invitation to be nosy.
“How is it possible that you two were in such different places?” Something shifts uneasily in my stomach. I’m asking about them, but maybe some part of me wants to know about Fitz and me too. How is it possible that two people who call themselves best friends can view their relationship so differently?
“We’ve been together a long time. Things have always been so comfortable and easy between us, you know?”
I nod.
“How old are you?” she asks.
“Seventeen.”
She purses her lips. “Don’t fall in love for, like, ten years, okay?” I laugh uneasily and she continues. “I was only nineteen when Ben and I met. We were too young then and we’re too young now. It’s too soon to decide our future.” She says this last part quickly, tossing it in the air without any conviction, testing the words out loud. When she tells this story to her friends and family, that’s the line she’ll choose. Too young. Too soon.
The bathroom door opens and Makayla disappears behind it. When she returns, her eyes and nose are red, her eyeliner smudged on the wrong side of smoky. “Can I hang out back here?” she whispers to Julie.
“I’m sorry, you need to take your seat.”
Makayla groans and runs her hands through her hair. She glances warily at her ex. He’s hunched over, head in his hands like an Eeyore impersonator. She looks like she’d rather jump out the window than spend the next few hours sitting next to him, and I’m hit with another wave of sympathy. He shouldn’t have to suffer through the rest of the flight sitting next to the girl who publicly ripped his heart to shreds.
“Switch seats with me?” I offer.
She hesitates. “Are you sure?”
“Yes.” I toss my hot chocolate cup in the garbage behind me, grab the bag of gummy worms, and move up the aisle. Ben lifts his head at the sound of my footsteps.
“Who are you? Where’s Kay?” He’s deflated. Even his knees look saggy. He moves to the side to allow me to pass.
“I’m Paige. Makayla is at the back of the plane.”
“Did she say—?”
“I didn’t want you to have to sit next to her for the rest of the flight, so we switched seats.”
“Well, that’s embarrassing.” His face droops lower. He’s entering basset hound territory.
For the next hour, Ben plays a game on his phone while I live through a time loop of Fitz opening the letter. I imagine it all: Surprise at learning I love him. Anger at learning I hate him. Hurt at the fact that I told him to stop talking to me. Each daydream adds another knot to my already twisty stomach. He agreed to wait, but now that plans have changed and I’m en route to New York, it’s not a stretch to imagine he’d give in to curiosity and see what all the fuss was about.
Ben sets his phone down with a heavy sigh and scrubs his hands over his face. I don’t want to get called out for staring again, but …
“Are you okay?” I blurt.
He gives me that look adults sometimes get around kids. The one that says: You have no idea what you’re talking about. “Just wait, kid.”
“What’s it feel like?”
“Rejection?”
“Heartbreak.” The word is shaky on my lips. It matches my hands and the tremble in my stomach.
He spins his phone between his fingers. His eyes are haunted, and he’s silent for so long I give up hope of an answer. I’m suddenly aware of the sweat dripping down my back, and the freezing air blowing in my face from the vents. I try to swallow back my panic, but it’s no use. I can feel it building, escalating, demanding attention.
I made a huge mistake.
No. Scratch that. I’ve made a hundred mistakes. Writing the letter. Leaving it with Fitz. Going to New York. Take your pick. My life is the Russian roulette of bad decisions, except in this game, every chamber is loaded.
“It’s every bad thought you’ve ever had about yourself.” The quiet pain laced through his words shoots me straight through the heart. “It’s a boulder sitting on your chest, squeezing the air from your lungs. It’s the feeling of losing something. It’s tearing your house apart brick by brick to find it, even though you know it’s not there.”
Whoa.
“I have to make a call. It’s an emergency.” My heart slams against my ribs, desperate to break free and escape the inevitable pain.
He checks the time on his phone. “Hope it can wait an hour.”
“Not really.”
“Relax, kid. You want to hear a story?”
“Sure. Yes. Please distract me. Anything.”
He settles in his seat. “I met Makayla on my twenty-second birthday …”
I groan silently and clutch my phone in my hands.
This trip was a mistake that’s going to tear Fitz and me apart. I can feel it. There’s no coming back from this.
Fitz Wilding wears confidence like a crown. He’s quick with a lazy grin, comfortable in every situation, and so adaptable it makes my head spin. He’s everything I’m not, and I hate him for it. Of course, I don’t hate him enough. Not nearly. If my hate were born of actual resentment and not of heartbreak, I’d be immune to the fact that he looks so heart-stoppingly good all the time. Take baseball, for example. Fitz looks real good at third: knees bent in a crouch, blue eyes serious, glove ready, brown hair curling under the edge of his hat.
Fitz watching a movie is equally phenomenal, because every emotion plays out on his face. I’ve probably spent entire days of my life watching Fitz watch movies. The proximity of his body to mine is always more interesting than the actors on the screen.
My favorite Fitz, however, is him behind the wheel of his pickup truck. All our best conversations have taken place in the cab of that truck. It’s where he confessed that he wants to play professional ball and where I confessed that I want to travel the world, and we bonded over the tragedy of having impossible dreams.
We’re admittedly an odd pair: the jock with a team full of baseball friends and a new girl in his DMs every week, and me. The girl with one other friend and no inclination to play sports. Fitz and I met in seventh-grade English class, and likely would have stayed classroom-only friends if his sister wasn’t always late picking him up from practice and my mom’s shifts didn’t end until thirty minutes after whatever after-school activity I joined to avoid being home alone. Those hot afternoons sitting with him on the curb outside school quickly became the best part of my day. And when I saw him turn down a ride from another parent to wait with me, I realized he was enjoying them too.
My breath catches at the sight of him now: hat on, windows down, left arm bent at the elbow, fingers lightly tapping the top of the frame. No matter how many girls he dates, I’m convinced that vulnerable, thoughtful, silly Fitz-behind-the-wheel is someone very few people know. I’m sick at the thought that I’m one letter away from losing access to my favorite version of him.